Chapter 6 - The Father’s Chord
The next morning, the rain returned, drumming a steady, rhythmic tattoo against the tall glass windows of the Mercer mansion.
Lily sat on the piano bench with Mara beside her. Instead of the kalimba or the guitar, Mara had placed the heavy sheet music of “The River Home” right on the music stand of the Steinway grand piano.
“Are you ready to try something big today, Lily-bean?” Mara asked gently.
“It’s too big,” Lily whispered, looking up at the polished black keys. “Mommy played the big piano. I’m too small.”
“You’re not too small,” a deep voice said from the doorway.
Lily and Mara both turned. Daniel walked into the room. He had taken off his suit jacket, rolled up his shirt sleeves to his elbows, and discarded his tie. He looked less like a corporate titan and more like a father.
He walked over to the piano, sat down on the bench right beside Lily, and placed his large hands on the keys.
“Can I join you?” Daniel asked his daughter.
Lily stared at him in utter shock. In all her four years, she had never seen her father touch the piano. Music had belonged strictly to Ellie.
“You don’t know how to play,” Lily whispered.
“I’m going to learn,” Daniel said. He looked at Mara. “Show us where to put our fingers.”
For the next hour, the grand music room echoed not with screams or tears, but with the clunky, uncoordinated notes of a father and daughter trying to piece together a ghost’s melody. Mara sat across from them, gently tapping her fingers on her knee to keep time, correcting hand positions, guiding them through the chords.
It wasn't professional. It wasn't perfect.
It was messy, emotional, and utterly healing.
By noon, they had managed the first four bars of “The River Home.” The haunting, tender melody filled the room, chasing away the shadows that had haunted the mansion for four long months.
Lily leaned her head against her father’s shoulder, her little fingers resting right beside his on the ivory keys.
Daniel wrapped his arm around her, holding her close, feeling the steady beat of her heart against his ribs. For the first time since the funeral, the suffocating weight in his chest lifted.
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Mara watched them from across the room, a quiet, bittersweet smile on her face. She packed her guitar into its case, quietly slipped out of the room, and closed the double doors behind her, giving them the space they had been denied for too long.
Little did they know, outside the wrought-iron gates of the estate, Richard Vance’s Maybach was parked by the curb, and a team of corporate spies were compiling documents that would try to tear Daniel Mercer’s empire apart by Monday morning.
